Wake up, dreaming
by kimmiesjoy
Summary: The first time she wakes up in Castle's bed, it doesn't take seconds or minutes for memory to come back to her. (set during and after 5x01)


If you are celebrating Coffee day, I hope you have a happy one, and if anyone wants to bring me a cup in bed...I won't say no!

* * *

_So wake up, wake up dreaming,_

_And lie here with me,_

_So wake up, wake up dreaming,_

_And lie here with me._

* * *

The first time she wakes up in Castle's bed, it doesn't take seconds or minutes for memory to come back to her. She doesn't have to force herself to remember where she is or why she's here, she isn't bombarded with images of his naked body.

She stretches peacefully, languidly, the tips of her fingers caressing the lobe of his ear, and her entire body, exposed above his sheets, yet warmed by the heat that radiates from him, spread out next to Castle in the bed.

Content and in love and thoroughly satisfied with her decision.

The memories are there, but they don't overwhelm her, they spread through her veins like good strong hot coffee, bringing her to life with each steady drip. She luxuriates in the reminders of her tender body, bruised lips and disgracefully mussed hair.

She smiles, tracing the length of his nose with her thumb, watching him scrunch up adorably and shiver at her touch, storing that information away with everything else she has learned in the short wonderful hours she has spent here with him.

It's not as complicated as she believed, to be here like this, not now she's done it anyway and it's easy and simple and sugary sweet in the obviousness of it when the idea to climb off of the mattress and bring him coffee in bed enters her mind.

So that's what she does, sliding past him slowly, finding a shirt on a chair almost as if he left it there for her and pulling her arms through the sleeves.

Rolling them up to her elbows and slowly buttoning the white cotton before she glances over her shoulder at him and slips out of the room.

* * *

He sits up straight in the bed, his mind full of naked Kate, happy Kate, smiley, laughing draped across him, spread beneath him Kate.

Loud Kate, mumbling, murmuring Kate, quick intense, deep and gentle Kate.

Loving Kate.

The Kate that comes to him in the dead of night wanting nothing but him, and them and them together and proving it with every whispered word, every confession and every press of her body. The Kate that takes his hand and guides him to his bed before sitting him down and spilling every secret that she has left, demanding he does the same before kissing him.

And kissing him and kissing him.

It had to be a dream.

His brain assailing him with every image imaginable.

Her silhouette above him in darkness, knees tight and clinging to his hips and her hair damp and sticking against his chest when she leans forwards.

Her hands raised above her head on his pillow when he bends down, fingers threaded through his and clinging desperately.

Back arching.

Lips parting.

Body quivering.

His name over and over again as she competes with the roaring thunder, crashing against him more vividly than the sparks of lightning outside his window.

And it had to be a dream.

He scans the bed, his eyes wide, it really truly had to have been a dream, no way is he this lucky.

After everything they had said to each other, screaming and yelling, ripping each other to pieces and storming away. There is no way he gets to wake up with the vivid images in his head being real and honest.

But he's naked.

And the bed is a complete rumpled mess and the pillow being at the end of the it would totally fit with the image that darts through his mind. Her, sleep ruffled Kate, eyes barely open yet staring up at him when he trails his tongue along the inner curve of her thigh.

But he's alone and if she was here, why would she leave the bed?

It's early or really late and surely, surely after everything, she would stay, unless she ran...But last nights Kate didn't seem like she was running anywhere...

If she was real.

Anyway where is the shirt he left...

He turns towards his bedroom door, catches sight of her polished toes, padding feet and bare legs. The long line of her thighs and oh, there is the shirt. Two mugs, the curling wave of her hair and a soft smile.

Quiet, tender Kate, as she finds her way back to his bedroom in the amber light, pausing only briefly before she finds her way back to his bed.

"Made you a coffee." She tells him, lifting the hot drinks in front of her, an explanation for her absence he wasn't sure he needed until she spoke the words.

He smiles, it wasn't a fantasy dispelled by waking, it wasn't the frantic workings of his sleeping mind. It wasn't wishful thinking or mental reverie.

But he still has to speak the words to truly believe them.

"So it wasn't a dream."

* * *

The second time she wakes up, Kate stretches across her bed. The bed she's alone in because he kicked her out of his home like a panicked teenager when he heard his mothers voice.

Her eyes snap open wide as little trickles of memory turn into one giant flood and the entirety of the day and night before wash over her in one giant tidal wave.

She lets the sheet drop and sits up straight.

She hid in his closet, whilst his mother was in the bedroom.

She snuck out like a ... a... a thief in the night having stolen his virtue and fled the scene.

And it's just so...ridiculous.

She laughs, the pleasurable guilt and silliness of it all taking her by surprise. Her hand lifts to hold the sound in against her lips, before she gives up and lets the joy bubble free, spilling around her in the once too quiet apartment as she collapses back onto the bed.

Oh...she's going to enjoy making him pay.

It wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.

Their first night together and he shoved her in a closet and kicked her out of the door like he was ashamed when all he wanted to do was dance and sing and leap around the room naked, although not whilst his mother and daughter were hovering, and just in general scream to the world that yes yes yes he finally got to love Kate Beckett.

To be in love with her outloud and happily and touch her and kiss her and...

Oh god, he had shoved her in the closet and now she would probably never let him touch her again.

She was going to kill him, shoot him, vilify him and string him up by a body part she was only just getting acquainted with, barely even friends yet.

Castle rolled to check the time, wondering how early he could get away with escaping the loft without his mother questioning it. His drunken daughter - huh...- would no doubt be sleeping all day.

His mother too actually, he sighed, clambered out of the bed heading for the shower, resigning himself to making it up to her. Begging and pleading and whatever else-ing to get them back to where they had been six short hours ago.

* * *

The third time she didn't wake up.

She hadn't fallen asleep.

Kate just lay in her bed curled within his arms listening to him breathe.

He wanted to take her someplace safe and the only thing she could think to do, other than breaking down as the injustice of it all burnt bright and painfully in her mind, the only thing she wanted to do, was cocoon herself within his arms.

So she did, laying her head against his chest, letting him hold her, his hand at her shoulder as she curled into him, tight and coiling to get just as close as possible. His chin falling to rest against the top of her head and his heavy sigh warm through her hair.

"I'll never be safe." she had told him, but it wasn't what she had meant. His heart had been hammering wildly beneath her cheek and all she could think was whilst he was the one holding her_ he_ would never be safe.

She was putting his life in danger just by loving him.

The very last thing she ever meant to do.

And somehow he had sensed it, had known in that moment exactly what she was thinking, and Castle had clung to her tightly until the tension that was holding her rigid against his chest began to drain away. Seeping slowly down between them to slip away into the quiet room leaving just the two of them, wrapped in each other.

Sometime later he had pulled her into bed and every one of his kisses had seared her skin as he begged her in silence not to use this as a reason to pull back, not knowing the entire time she was concocting a plan to keep them close.

Kate wanted desperately to tell him, to assure him that he didn't need to touch her like it was the last time because she was going to do her damndest to make sure it wasn't. She wanted to hold his face and whisper that she would keep him safe, even as he lamented the fact he couldn't do the same for her.

And as they joined their bodies together and he had sworn he would keep her with him like this forever, connected, attached, nothing between them if it meant she was alive and in his arms, Kate had wanted to cry out that she would give anything for it to be that simple, she wanted so badly to tell him she would have to leave to make it possible.

To prepare him for waking alone and thinking the worst of her.

But she couldn't, so she spent the night letting their unspoken vows cleanse each other in the darkness, their pleas and their fright lay over them and surround them until they washed it away with love and tenderness. With a soft caress of gentle fingers or a warm kiss of devotion, they told each other everything they were able.

Until the sun had started to rise and, with his hand at her back and his lips to her forehead, Castle had fallen asleep.

Kate lay watching him as long as she dared, letting him slip deeply enough into his own dreams that when she moved she didn't disturb him.

Forcing herself from the bed.

Nothing was worth losing him over, nothing, not now she had him. And as she found her clothes and her holster and redressed in semi darkness, he slept on peacefully.

She paused, gun in hand, staring down at him, relaxed and unmarred in dreams, her lips lifting with the swell of love that made her heart surge from her chest, riding it high into the back of her throat as her felt herself suddenly choked with emotion.

She would keep him safe, she would keep them all safe.

The only thing that kept her moving, as she ached to run her finger along his brow, was the knowledge that his eyes would open again soon. They wouldn't stay permanently shut like her mothers.

She would have the deep blue of his love shining back at her, they would have a chance to do this properly.

But first she needed a guarantee, Kate had to keep what they would have together protected.

For her someplace was by his side, in his life with his hands spanning her body and keeping her grounded, but she couldn't let herself have that if it wasn't the same for him.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she closed the bedroom door, hoping the next time she saw him she would be free to offer him someplace of his own to rest his head and feel safe.

Within the sanctuary of her willing arms.

* * *

When he woke the next time the bed was empty and he knew...

"Oh Kate, what have you done?"

* * *

The fourth time, the fourth time in as many days, they woke up together, neither sure who disturbed the other, but not worrying, nothing of the outside world forcing it's way between them this time.

It was as it should be.

Her head on his shoulder and her fingers curled under the elastic of the boxers that she had shoved low on his waist. Trip trailing the length of his side, before sliding under the material, her thumb smooth over his hip before she repeated the motion.

Grazing his bicep or letting her fingers run through the crease of his elbow, along the line of his hand where he held her knee, trapped, across his thighs.

Touching everywhere, palms spread flat, moving slowly.

"Did I wake you?" She wonders, her fingers still moving, not really sorry if she did.

"I don't know, I don't mind." Castle mumbles sleepily, smiling up at the ceiling, "I like waking up dreaming."

She puffs as she rolls herself further into the wall of his chest, pressing her lips to his skin. "It's not a dream Castle." She tells him with a smile, not quite believing it herself. Her fingers dip back under the band at his hips, fingers providing him with evidence that he is in fact awake when she pinches at his soft, yet rapidly tensing skin.

"You groped me in the precinct," He states flinching in shock as if it has only just occurred to him, "This cannot be reality."

"I did." His skin is so very soft when she lets her tongue dance across it.

"And I've been wondering something."

"Oh." He really does talk too much, her fingers curl at his jaw as she wonders if she should properly shut him up.

"Yes thinking a lot." He nods seriously when she laughs.

"You only just woke up."

"Well it dawned on me yesterday but..." Castle trails off with a happy yet leering smile, and in one swift move Kate hoists herself across him, holding tight to his shoulders.

"I had other ideas?" She asks, grinning down at him.

"Yes, you did and you wouldn't take no for an answer."

"For once you listened." The distance between them becoming nothing at all.

"Well yes." He rolls his eyes as if she's insane.

"Thats never happened before." Kate smiles through the lie, letting him see and know and understand, blinking down at him as it all reflects back at her in the happiness of his face.

"Never demanded sex before."

She laughs, a loud HA that makes her shudder against his chest, "Oh, so that was all I had to do."

Castle nods, slipping his fingers through her hair, pulling her down to him so he can get at her mouth, "Pretty much."

"I'll be sure to remember that," Kate grins again, her lips soft and warm over his, before she slides lower, over the pulse in his throat as she breathes, "So what were you thinking about?" Distracting him quickly before he can answer.

"Oh welll...mmm, right you work for the NYPD."

Kate laughs again, clearly distracting him is paying off, "Yes, yes I do."

"No," He says quietly, trapping her fingers, "I mean we were in an elevator at the twelfth."

"Yes." Kate agrees quietly slipping her free hand in between them , groping him again, oh sweet memories how they will plague them both forever when they are in the confines of that metal box.

"Well it was an elevator in a police station Kate." He moans, as if she wasn't aware.

"Righhhht." She kisses his neck again, her body slowly rolling against his hips as she raises her self higher, seeking more, searching for his mouth.

"You really don't get where I'm going with this." This time he laughs.

"I'm a little busy right now Castle," Kate replies evilly, another grin pressing into his skin, as if she thinks he can absorb her happiness, maybe he can.

Her hands run the length of his arms before she pulls them up, guiding him to hold her waist as she lifts the shirt, another one of his, up and over her head.

"You groped me."

"YES," Kate growls, finally getting exasperated at his delay to what she was really hoping would be a good start to her morning. "I groped you in an elevator in the precinct...a living fantasy a dream whatever Castle. If you shut up I will make a whole heap of your dreams come true... ."

"I was thinking about the security cameras Kate, but if you don't care." He laughs again, merry and joyful and smug in her bed, rolling her before she has the chance to freeze or think. Trapping her beneath him, "But if you're ok with it..."

His mouth slides over hers as he swallows her moan of shock, teasing it from her lips until it drifts into a pleasurable sigh.

And maybe he is dreaming, maybe she is too, because as his hands skim slowly, so so beautifully slowly down her sides, she honestly couldn't care less.


End file.
